Is then Theodora to be blamed? If so, there are an unaccountable number of women, yesterday, to-day, and forever, in the same fault. It would be safe to say there is not a happy household in the land where the wives and mothers do not use many such small hypocrisies. Is there any wife reading this sentence, who has not often made a pleasant evening for her whole family, by a few admiring or sympathizing words? For though a woman will go through hard work and distracting events without praise or sympathy, a man cannot. If admiration and kindness fail him, he flies to the black door of oblivion by drink, or drugs, or a pistol shot. A man with a wife whose sympathy and admiration can be relied on, is never guilty of that sin. Is there a good wife living who has not pretended interest in subjects she really cares nothing about; who has not listened to the same stories a hundred times, and laughed every time; who does not in some way or other, violate her own likes or dislikes, tastes or opinions every day in the week in order to induce a household atmosphere which it will be pleasant to live in? This is not the place to discuss the ethics of this universal custom. Women, with reckless waste have always flung themselves into the domestic gulf. They choose to throw away their own happiness in order to make others happy, forgetting too often that _they who injure themselves shall not be counted innocent_. CHAPTER VII THE NEW CHRISTINA Home is not ruined in a day, and it is wonderful what rack and strain and tugging the marriage tie will bear ere it snaps asunder. For three years and a half after the birth of the child, Theodora was subjected to an unwearying hostility, always finding fresh reasons for complaint and injustice. And it was a cruel symptom of this intentional malice, that it took as its usual vehicle, little David. He could do nothing right. Baby as he was, his grandmother found him to be a child of many sinful proclivities. She was never weary of pointing out his faults. "He looked so vulgarly English, he had no Scotch burr in his speech; he walked wrong, he made her peaceful home a Bedlam of crying and shouting. He was naturally rude, he would scarcely answer his aunts if they spoke to him; and if she herself but came near him, he ran away and hid himself in his mother's arms. He was also shockingly fond of low company. He could not be coaxed into her room, but was never out of the kitchen; and one day she had found him sitting on the pastry table, watching McNab make the tarts." At this charge Robert smiled and asked: "Why does not Ducie keep him out of the kitchen? She ought to do so."